BBC Begins to Roll Out Enhanced Search Services to Web Site, Blog Post Provides Excellent Background About the Project
A very interesting and informative blog post by Matthew McDonnell from the BBC. This article will be of interest to not only info pros but also to users. Many will find it interesting to all that goes in to redesigning and building a search engine.
+ A brand-new search which intelligently tailors the display to the specific query the user enters
+ The addition of featured content to search result pages
+ Improved links to non-BBC content
+ More accurate results through improved meta-data creation
Our aim in designing this new search experience has been to present search results in a way that makes sense of the huge variety of content available on bbc.co.uk. It should be effortless to find a specific piece of content and enjoyable to explore everything that we have on a subject.
The richness and diversity of the BBC's internet content (News, Blogs, iPlayer, Weather, Sport, Recipes and so on) places demands on site search that are different from more focused websites and this led us to explore original solutions to enterprise search.
As you will see in this post, our solution is a major departure from traditional enterprise search designs. So, for the rest of this post, I'd like to give you some insight into how we reached our decision to make such a significant change to the way we deliver our search results.
The post goes on in great detail to cover several areas including:
+ How the BBC team could make site search better. One thing they did was analyze what users what searching and clicking on. Charts with this info for December, 2009 are provided.
+ Problems and Challenges with Search Result Lists
Then, the post shares (with screen caps) a look of some of what's new with BBC site search.
Here are a few searches with the new functionality in place:
1) "Smart Zones" instead of a traditional list of results
2) New "Highlighted Content"
For example, a search for India always brings back a box highlighting weather along with a BBC Country Profile
3) Extra results from around the web
Content from news providers beyond the BBC
4) Extended Query Terms
In library language, the engine automatically will use synonyms when necessary to bring like things together.
Example: Prince Charles or The Prince of Wales.
+ Added Content Structure
What's interesting about this is that it allows humans to make the final decisions on what tags (part of the metadata) will be used.
We have put a system in place that uses search to suggest the most relevant tags for BBC content. Content producers accept or reject these tags before they are committed to the system. The tags are then used to influence the results that are returned when you search the website.
+ Addressable search results
Persistent and unique URLS.
+ Phased Roll-out
What does that mean in the case of the BBC?
The roll-out will be phased. We'll be monitoring our metrics (usage, click-throughs etc) and the feedback we receive to tune the product during the deployment cycle. At the moment only about 11,000 search terms will return the enhanced results detailed above. Over the coming weeks more and more searches will return the enhancements until every search works in this way. There will be additional zones added into the results and we have a slate of new features that are in development.
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